You Had Me At Hello
by Vulcan Wolf
Summary: EDITED! This is a strange little one-shot that was spawned by listening to Kenny Chesney. Manda Thomas takes on a dare from a friend and does three things: she buys a stranger a drink, chats him up, and dances a few songs with him. Bones-centric.


**_AN: First ever attempt at a one-shot. I have more sitting on my HD if you want more reading material. I hope Manda doesn't come across as a MarySue, that would just kill me. I was inspired to write this while listening to "You Had Me At Hello" by Kenny Chesney, hence the title. I had a flash of inspiration that showed me the following tale. This is Bones-centric, btw, and unless my good readers (and reviewers *wink wink*) want more, you won't see a whole lot of Jim Kirk. Song-fic-ish thing that got written at ten o'clock one night when I was doing my thing and feeding the muses. This is told mostly from Manda's POV, with Bones at the end. Enjoy._**

* * *

Manda Thomas set down the empty glass very carefully and squeezed her eyes shut.

"How'd that one go?" Prian Nalari asked with a decidedly smug tone of voice.

"Prian, I hate you." She buried her head in both hands. If she didn't spend the night hugging the toilet, she'd go happy to her grave. Manda also tried to remember why she'd let her friends talk her into coming to Orion's Corner for some R&R. They'd just finished their Kobayashi Maru scenario a few hours ago and Manda was, personally, still numb. She'd been in the center chair today and swore if the real thing was anything like the simulator, she'd be perfectly happy with both feet solidly on the ground. Maybe she'd stick to something that didn't require her to take command of hundreds of lives and a massive starship and steer them into the nearest hotspot of trouble. Engineering or communications. Hell, even science and medical was looking inviting after _that _trip through simulated Hell.

_I should be in my room, reading a good romance or watching an old holo-vid or something. I shouldn't be in _here_ getting drunk and feeling sorry for myself because I got my ass kicked by a simulation. _She thought bitterly. Suddenly, Prian Nalari perked up and she cracked an eye open to see the smile on her roommate's face.

"Whatever it is, Prian, my answer is _no_. Not tonight, I'm not in the mood."

"Spoilsport." Prian stuck her tongue out. Sometimes, Manda hated having an Orion for a roommate, Prian had no limits to _any_thing, there was a new boyfriend every two or three weeks and Manda had finally stopped counting and it had taken Boyfriend #12 for her to establish that _if _Prian and her man of the hour were getting cozy in the shared room, to hang a red banner on the door. That way Manda didn't have to walk in on them, as she had so many times seeing her roommate buck naked with her new boyfriend was almost _normal_.

"Aw, lighten up, Manda." Nick Horton gave her hair a friendly tousle. She jerked away, hissing at him.

"Alright, fine, if you're going to be that way." Prian pouted, "The next boy you look at who's not at this table, you have to go up to him, talk to him, buy him a drink, and dance to one song with him. I get to choose the song."

"No you do _not_ and no I'm not." She rubbed her face, "Prian, you're mean. You know how I am around strangers."

"You need to lighten up, Manda. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were half-Vulcan or something." Prian teased, Manda snarled at her and contemplated throwing the empty shot-glass at her roommate's head. She refused to look anywhere but the table, knowing Prian would be all over her if she strayed. Suddenly, the main doors swung open and a new cluster of cadets rolled in, laughing, joking, and carousing. Manda refused to look at them. She marked at least one of them by the sound of his voice and rolled her eyes as Prian practically fell off her barstool as she made a beeline straight for the one leading the pack of carousers. Only Prian would go that nuts over Jim Kirk. Manda has some classes with the Academy's renegade, and she found him fascinating and in desperate need of some kind of professional help, but she would never _dream _of sleeping with him like half the female Cadet population had quite willingly. As they oozed past Manda's already-crowded table, Prian shrieked and dissolved in a fit of giggles. Manda raised her eyes enough to see that Kirk had swept her roommate right off her feet and had an interesting way of saying hello.

"Prian, you whore." She muttered softly. The others at their table just snickered. They all knew Prian's reputation, some of them had shared their sheets with the energetic Orion one or two times. Orion's Corner was one place where the Cadets could really be themselves, no holds barred, anything and everything was fair game. While Kirk and a majority of the party took a corner table for what quickly became an orgy, one broke off and headed for the bar. Manda twisted the empty glass between her hands for a while, listening to the ebb and surge of music, loud conversation, and the watched the flow of people from under lowered lashes. Finally, sick of what she'd gotten into tonight, she overturned her empty glass and shoved away from the table.

"Hey, Manda! Where are you going?"

"I'm not _leaving_, you twot. I'm getting another drink." She turned away as Hawk Bolter caught her by the hand, pulling out of his grasp, "Dumbass." She pushed through the crowd to the bar and got the tender's attention.

"What can I get for you, little lady?" he graced her with a winning smile that had her curling her lip and rolling her eyes.

"A double Jack Daniels, straight, no ice." She didn't even think twice. That smile didn't falter, it just grew. A second later it seemed, he set down the glass with her order. She relished the familiar burn and hissed when she could breathe again. Manda held the drink two-handed and pressed the cold glass to her forehead as she closed her eyes and just breathed.

When her heart-rate had slowed, Manda lifted her head a little and finally looked around, her gaze sweeping the crowded bar and never resting on one singular patron. She picked out a few professors and at _least _three commissioned officers in Orion's Corner but didn't think they'd say much about what they obviously saw going on. Standing on guard by the door, watching cadets come and go, was Christopher Pike. She wasn't surprised to see him in here, and passed him by with a cursory glance.

Finally, she reached the bar again and took stock of her closest neighbors. Immediately to her left, a couple was mid-makeout and she rolled her eyes as she passed them by. To her right, running one finger around the rim of a nearly-empty Corona Classic bottle, was a gentleman who could have been a professor or a cadet, she couldn't really tell because he, like many patrons, had traded his uniform for civvies. He was older than most Cadets by five years or so. Maybe six, if she was generous. She did a subtle study of her right-hand neighbor, taking notice of his posture. His shoulders were hunched, she read exhaustion, frustration, and some bad memory in the tension. He wore a casual blue button-down with the sleeves rolled back to mid-forearm and pushed back to the elbow, tucked neatly into the well-loved, fitted denims with a black leather belt through the belt-loops. If she turned just a fraction, she could see that the top three or four buttons had been left undone, revealing just a tiny bit of the broad chest beneath, a peek of white tee-shirt. She moved down to his hands, which had gotten her attention first. They weren't too long or too broad, but they were definitely strong hands, sure hands, with the graceful fingers of a surgeon or a musician. Maybe he was both?

She stole a glance at his face, half-hidden in shadows, and checked a strong jaw-line, shadowed by a two-day bear-growth, a proud nose that had been broken at _least _once in some forgotten fight, what threatened to become a permanent furrow in the middle of his forehead if he didn't stop frowning at the world and it's troubles, traces of laugh-lines around the corners of his eyes and his grim mouth. So he _could _smile, she thought wryly as she nursed her Jack Daniels. As she watched, one hand came up and raked through already-messy auburn hair, making the shorter strands stand on end. The world-weary sigh that followed broke some part of Manda's heart. She cursed herself for a pushover, and shook her head, twirling her glass idly. She rested her head in one hand and listened again. She knew when the empty bottle hit the bar and she heard him ask for another one. Manda cast a quick glance to the corner table, but Prian was completely enthralled with Kirk. Time to make the jump. She straightened and got the bartender's attention

"Make that two." She looked sideways at her neighbor, "This one's on me."

"You want lime with that?"

"Yes, please." She nodded, speaking for both of them. The drinks were set down on cocktail napkins, the lime-wedges tucked onto the rims of the uncapped bottles. She pushed one over to her neighbor, who took it with thanks. Manda took a sip, rimmed her bottle with the lime, then pushed the wedge into the neck of the bottle before capping it with her open palm and overturning the whole thing.

"What are you _doing_?"

"It's a trick my cousin taught me." She righted the bottle and removed her hand carefully, catching the first flow in a practiced sip, "Works every time. You have to take off the top first, or it overflows the minute you turn it over." She licked lime from her fingers and watched her neighbor try the trick. He did it the way she'd done it and she didn't miss how his eyes, a deep, soulful brown, lit up with some satisfaction.

"I'll be damned. It worked."

"Told ya." She smiled and took a sip of her beer before setting it down, turning to face him fully so she could really see him.

"What's your name, kid?" He eyed her with a quick but measuring once-over. Normally, Manda would have bristled at being called "kid" by anybody. Tonight she just didn't care. She wiped a sweaty palm on the skirt of her sundress and stuck out her hand.

"I'm Manda Thomas." She blushed like an idiot as he took her hand. God his grip was strong! This was a sure man, when he wasn't second-guessing himself. She curled her fingers around his and smiled.

"Pleasure's mine. Leonard McCoy."

"You're a medical student." Her smile came easier. She hadn't seen him before now, but she'd heard of him. Whenever Kirk was mentioned, so was McCoy. She saw more of Kirk than his human shadow, but that was fine.

"Do I have it stamped on my forehead or somethin'?" his smile was crooked, lopsided, and Manda absolutely loved it.

"Nah, you just have the look of a doctor. Or was I wrong and you're a practitioner?"

"Oh no, you got it right the first time." He just shrugged, raised his bottle, "What shall we drink to?"

"Solitude, solidarity, and escape from the assholes who call themselves our friends."

"Ah, you have one of those, too?"

"Three or four, actually. The worst of them is wrapped around your friend-in-need."

"So _that's_ Prian." McCoy looked to the corner table where their respective acquaintances were engaged in a serious round of tonsil-hockey, "You know, she's the only thing he's talked about for two solid months, I just about took his key privileges away because he wouldn't shut _up_ about her."

"Two months? That's gotta be a record."

"For _both _of them." The eye-roll said so much. He probably saw as many partners in any given week as Manda saw with Prian. Manda snickered into her beer. The silence that fell between them was oddly comfortable, which for Manda was a rare thing. She nursed her beer and wondered if Prian had noticed them yet or if her roommate even _cared_. Knowing Prian, she'd probably completely forgotten the ridiculous demands that Manda hadn't quite followed in the order in which they had been delivered. Buy the drink first, _then _get him talking. Two down, one to go and likely to be fulfilled on this particular outing. No problem. Two out of three wasn't bad odds for somebody who avoided the opposite sex like a plague out of preference and shunned most companionship for solitude. Suddenly, a new song started and Manda's head shot up. She looked straight to the corner table. Where was…Prian?

"Oh _no_!" She twisted around to look for her roommate. Where _was _she? When Manda saw Prian by the old-fashioned juke-box with Kirk, flipping through the music selection, she almost died of horror. The song changed again and she looked at McCoy, who was completely oblivious. The opening strains of an old 21st century country song blared over the audio-system. Manda might have shrugged it off if she didn't _know _the song by heart.

"Tim McGraw, "I Like It, I Love It"."

"You _know _this song?" she looked at McCoy in shock. Someone else knew her guilty pleasure? She still hated Prian for putting it on, knowing why she'd done it. All she got was a smirk and one raised eyebrow. Manda shot a glance at the guilty party and chuckled wickedly, "Doctor McCoy, can I ask you a rather _large _favor? It may or may not salvage my evening." She held out one hand to him in invitation, half-expecting him to say no thanks while knowing damn well he'd take the invitation if it was the last thing he did tonight. When he took her hand, she pulled him off the bar-stool and led the way to the cleared dance-floor. No one danced to music like this anymore, except the old folks, but Manda didn't really care of they were the only people on the floor for the next three minutes and thirty seconds.

"You might know this song backwards, but lets see if you can _dance _to it, sweetheart." He turned the tables on her and pulled her onto the dance-floor in a whirlwind of footwork that left her gasping for breath between fits of laughter. Manda surprised herself by laughing, she couldn't remember the last time she'd actually laughed at something let alone herself. The music had woken a beast in McCoy, his eyes were almost dangerously bright as he led the way, and she let him lead. At one point, he grabbed her around the waist and she stretched her fingertips to brush the old parquet floor as he dipped her before pulling her up and into a breath-taking spin.

_Wow! _She thought vaguely as the song ended after what seemed like a _lot _longer than three minutes and thirty seconds and yet not nearly that long. She didn't have any time to catch her breath, however, as someone chose another upbeat song for round two. This one was a 20th century-style swing classic. "Jumpin' Jack" by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, another of her dirty little secrets. She looked to the juke-box, but Prian and Kirk weren't there anymore, probably hadn't been since deciding to see how much torment Manda and McCoy could handle before they broke under stress.

_See if she pulls a stunt like _that _again. _Manda thought wickedly, _Serves her right. Where'd she go?_ Oh well. Four minutes and forty-eight seconds later, the song ended and Manda ended up in a body-contact dip that took all of their combined balance and concentration to hold in place. The second the song ended, the whole bar erupted in wild applause and she realized belatedly that they'd collected quite an audience. McCoy pulled her carefully to a standing position and she took stock of herself. Manda didn't dare look in a mirror, she probably looked absolutely horrible, but she _felt _fantastic. Endorphin rush from the dancing, no doubt.

Sweat cooled on her shoulders and collarbone, on her arms, on the back of her neck and on her face. Brushing a strand of hair out of her face, she let McCoy guide her back through the crowd, which quickly surged onto the dance-floor after leaving it open for the two of them for the span of two songs totaling a little over eight minutes on the dance-floor itself. He asked for two waters and handed one to her, warning her to drink slowly.

"I think I sweated off at least half of the alcohol I consumed tonight." She gasped between sips, trying to regulate her breathing to normal again, "Did anyone know about that dirty little secret of yours, Doctor?"

"Nope."

"Now they do." She looked for Prian and Kirk, who were somewhere in the area. They drank two glasses of water apiece, the good doctor's orders, before taking the floor again. This time, a _much _slower number had come up and it cooled the heat left from their fast-paced antics earlier. The gentle strains of "You Had Me From Hello" by Kenny Chesney rolled over Manda like cool waves and she felt the last little bit of tension from that afternoon's catastrophe disappear as a broad, warm hand roughened by years of practicing medicine came to rest on the small of her back. She pressed closer to the warm body that hand belonged to and laid her head on his shoulder, freeing one hand to stroke the back of his neck and play with his hair. She'd only met him maybe an hour ago, half an hour ago, and yet it felt as though she'd known him for a lifetime. When the song ended, she was almost disappointed.

"Hey."

"Hmm?" she raised her head, "Just another minute before the real world comes back."

"Manda?"

"What?"

"You wanna ditch this party and go somewhere quiet?"

"Where could we _go_?" she pulled back to look at him, puzzled. Her place was out of the question, if she had Prian right she was already back and in full swing with Kirk. McCoy just smiled and took her by the hand, leading her to the bar again. They paid out their tabs and left Orion's Corner. On their way out the door, they passed Captain Pike, who smiled and gave Manda a thumbs-up. Did he know something? Well, considering they hadn't let go of each other for more than a few seconds since "I Like It, I Love It" had first played, there wasn't much to be left for the imagination. Looking back once as McCoy let her out first, Manda was treated to a once-in-a-lifetime sight. Prian and Kirk hadn't left Orion's Corner after all, they were standing near the dance-floor, openly stunned expressions on their faces as they watched Manda left with McCoy on her arm. Feeling particularly giddy and just a tad spiteful, Manda blew Prian a kiss over her shoulder and the door closed on her roommate's baffled expression. Beside her, McCoy snickered. She looked up, "I assume rightly that's a first for you, too?"

"I never thought I'd see that boy look so shocked."

"I thought they'd be back at the room by now."

"I honestly don't think they've _moved _in about thirty minutes." McCoy pulled her close against him as they left the bar and headed for campus. It had been temperate and muggy when Manda had set out earlier that evening for Orion's Corner, but now it was rather chilly and overcast. As they walked across the grass, it began to rain, just a light drizzle. It was startling on Manda's bare shoulders, and she almost jumped out of her skin. She looked up and frowned, then had an idea.

"I think my place is closer than yours. And since I seem to have the advantage over my shameless roommate, I plan to enjoy myself in my own bed."

"Would you mind some company in that bed of yours?"

"Not tonight. It's cold enough." She smiled as she thought of what Prian would do if they staggered home to find the stay-out banner hanging on the door. When they reached her door, she dug out her key, ran it through the reader-slot on the handle, and waited for the green light. Getting the door open, she set her key in the slot by the door itself, which brought up the foyer lights.

"Lights." she moved through the room to her side of the arrangement, kicking off her shoes as the lights came up enough to see by.

"Looks like Prian's a bit of a slob." McCoy eyed her roommate's disorganized chaos.

"You noticed." She kicked a discarded shirt back to Prian's side of the room, a shirt that _didn't _belong to her roommate, wondering for a moment if it belonged to Kirk. Probably, if they'd been an item for the past two months. Going to the bathroom, she pulled down the blue cotton nightgown hanging on the hook by the towels. Prian left things laying around, including towels, and she picked up a wet towel that had been there since morning, hanging it up to dry. She changed into the nightgown, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. Leaving the bathroom, she caught McCoy pulling a faded Ol' Miss tee-shirt over his head. An overnight bag lay at his feet and she smiled, realizing he had left prepared for anything. Manda chuckled and padded across the room. He heard her coming and his head shot up. The intensity of his brown eyes as he took in her slightly disheveled state made Manda blush at least three shades of red. McCoy just smiled easy and sat down on the narrow bed, holding out one hand to her. When she laid her hand in his, he pulled her down onto the bed.

"Lights down." She called as they got comfortable. Prian had left a window open and a nice breeze blew into the room, cooling things down and making it comfortable. Manda knew when it began raining and knew the Kobayashi Maru wouldn't be coming back to haunt her tonight. How could it, when there was someone else to occupy her dreams?

* * *

Leonard McCoy lay in the dark, just listening. Outside it was raining, causing a soft, soothing patter on the window and a cool breeze. Inside, it was cool and comfortable, and he lay with his back against the wall as he just listened to the soft, almost inaudible respirations of the girl in his arms. He wrapped one arm very carefully around her and rested one hand on her chest to feel the steady rise and fall of sleep and to measure the slow heart-rate. Manda Thomas was one of a kind, and he was wondering how he'd even gotten her attention. There wasn't a Cadet at the Academy didn't know Manda Thomas somehow, either in person or by association by rumor and word of mouth. She was the virtuous twin to Jim Kirk, who was equally notorious on campus for his numerous sexual exploits. Manda did not seek sexual relations with anyone, of any race or gender, content to spend her evenings with her books or a few select friends. That didn't stop her from being one of the most desirable girls on campus, however. Manda was the daughter of Damian Thomas, who was Fleet Admiral of Starfleet and one of the highest-ranking bureaucrats in the Federation. You wormed your way into Manda Thomas's good graces and your future career was a done deal. But no one had accomplished that yet, though many had tried and failed in various degrees. Even Jim had been brave enough to try a few months back. That had lasted about a week before he moved on. Wondering, just briefly, what on earth he'd gotten himself into by spending the evening in her exclusive company and then following her home, Leonard drifted off to sleep and didn't stir once all night.

* * *

**_Okay, that's it! Did you like it? Love it? Hate it? See that little box down there? click that and review, please! thank you! _**


End file.
